


Get Better

by Carbocat



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Scars, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, There's some Taylor Swift quoting later on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-18 01:07:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4686503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbocat/pseuds/Carbocat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he got super, after he stopped being just another test subject that hadn't died yet and became Hydra's miracle, their golden boy, they learned quickly that he didn't scar so easily anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When he was little and new to the world, and hadn’t yet had his childish wonder, innocence, and optimism yanked away from him, he thought scars were cool.

Scratches from playing in the woods behind their apartment building, from slipping on rocks and climbing up trees were gawked at with awe and with curiosity. Skinned knees and scraped up hands from tripping, from chasing, from playing, were poked at and bandaged. Gashes that cried blood from falling off things his mother had told him not to climb had scabbed over with time and then were picked at until they bled all over again.

Those were cool.

Those were caused by him, by his own recklessness, by his impulsive need to test every boundary, every limitation that was put in front of him. Those were caused by his strength, by his own miscalculation, by his courage to do what scared him.

When he was young, fresh, and unmarked by the world around him, by the war, protests, and strife that had torn through his country, the only thing he wanted to do was mar the surface of his silky white skin. He wanted to tarnish the untarnished, scrap, cut, and bruise the blanketed paleness of his flesh like he would trample over fresh snow.

For nothing more than conversations at the park with the boys from down the road, for colorful Band-Aids with silly cartoon characters and itchy gauze from teacher’s first-aid kit, and his mother’s tutted _‘what will I do with you, my clumsy boy?’_

Every cut that seeped red was accompanied by a comforting hand on his shoulder from his father when no tears were shed. Every bruise that had blackened then faded through the rainbow to a sickening yellow came with a hug from his mother and a kiss on his cheek, and an exasperated eye roll from Wanda for doing something she had told him was stupid in the first place.

It was cool. It was surviving. It was like painting blank canvas with dirty red-dipped paintbrushes.

His father had always said that scars were how you knew you were surviving, that a man that died without scars didn’t really live a life worth living. He told him that he had to earn his death, the scars showed that.

He had a scar that didn’t tan across his kneecap from where he’d wrecked his bike flying down a hill at eight years old. It had hurt and he had cried, but his father still rubbed soothing circles on his shoulder. His mother had still whispered words of comfort after he’d broken his arm flying over the handle bars. The gash on his knee meant nothing against the snap of his ulna but broken bones didn’t leave scars to show your friends after the cast came off.

Wanda saved up her money and bought him kneepads before telling him to stop being a showoff.

He had laughed. _What? Me?_

_‘Idiot.’_

There was a silvery white line down his forearm that could only be seen in the right kind of lighting from where he’d cut it on a jagged piece of wood when the firemen had pulled him out from under the wreckage of their apartment building, a whole twelve minutes after Wanda had been rescued. He had barely noticed the cut until the paramedic had tried to pull him away from his sister to patch him up.

It didn’t really matter, the cut, not when his heart had ached so much worse for the loss of his parents. The needle that pierced through his skin with every stitch felt nothing like the loss of hope, of security, innocence, love, his parents.

He later showed the therapist at the orphanage the row of tight black stitches that laced up his arm and told her that he survived, that he’d have the scar to prove it.

He didn’t tell her that he was having nightmares, that he wasn’t ‘coping’ like he had led her to believe because Alex said they sent you away when you didn’t cope. He didn’t tell her how it felt like he couldn’t breathe when he couldn’t see Wanda, how he felt like he left a lot in with his parents in that building and he didn’t know if he could ever get it back.

There was a tiny scar under his left eye that he could barely see any more, from where he had got in a fight with an older boy in the alley behind the orphanage for a reason he couldn’t remember. He wasn’t even sure if he had a reason other than wanting to hit something and to be hit in return. The boy, Aidan with the greasy hair and the scowl, wore a ring with a silver moose and it had cut through skin when he connected with Pietro’s cheekbone.

It was Wanda, who decided after she had knocked Aidan’s lights out that Pietro was right when he said they should leave the orphanage.

A bumpy jagged scar behind his ear that had bled a worrying amount after having a bottle cracked against his skull by a drunk that had got too handsy with his sister in some seedy bar. Wanda had dragged him out of the bar, cursed his recklessness, and patched him up in the bathroom of their rented apartment with a needle from their sewing kit. He had laughed and asked if it was at least going to be a cool scar.

They didn’t go back to that bar.

He had scars with stories he couldn’t remember, stories he wouldn’t tell, couldn’t tell, from his recklessness and his anger.

Pietro had a lot of scars; he collected them like trading cars, showed them off like trading cards too.

Wanda didn’t like them, but he did.

She used to call him the Patchwork Man when she helped changed bandage after bandage from fights he couldn’t remember, when she stayed up vigilantly with him through concussions with only mild complain, when she handed over painkillers for sore muscles and bruises with nothing more than an eye roll. He had told her that it just mean that he was alive.

They were signs of his struggles, of _their_ struggles; it was better if he bruised, bled, and scarred to tell their story instead of her.

He used to whisper to her that it was his legacy that littered his body like ancient runes of long ago civilizations. His body was his pyramids, his Rosetta stone that told fantastic legends and epics of bravery, of all their sacrifices, their will, their fight.

The curse of Pietro Maximoff tattooed his body, like hieroglyphics in King Tut’s grave, to curse all those who stood before him, who stood between him and the revenger he swore he’d have.

They were signs that he was surviving, earning his death.

She had told him if he wanted to leave a story behind he should get a diary instead.

He liked them, the scars and their meanings, he wore them with pride.

He had been proud of them until they weren’t his anymore, until he didn’t get to decided what scarred him and then they were all tainted.

Once Hydra entered the picture, before they made his _super-_ anything, they had scarred him. They became less of a testament of his strength, endurance, and survival and more of a tale of torture. They were just a reminder of screaming until his throat was raw, of operating tables, of handcuffs that bit into his skin, of helplessness; a reminder of what happened when you put your faith into a faceless agency.

Every needle mark felt like it never went away long after the bruises faded. Just another reminder of the clear liquids that were forced beneath his skin, that had caused his muscles to freeze, his veins to burn, his limbs to go numb, and his mind to play cruel tricks. The tell-tale cracks in x-rays from running too fast, too soon, or not running fast enough, from guards who didn’t care about anything but releasing their rage. They didn’t bring about pride, not for his determination to survive or his strength.

After he got super, after he stopped being just another test subject that hadn’t died yet and became Hydra’s miracle, their fucking golden boy, they learned quickly he didn’t scar so easily anymore, that he healed so much quicker. Cuts from sharp knives across his skin clotted in seconds, leaving nothing behind but dry blood and smooth skin underneath.

It was daunting, it was fascination; it made him the target of their abuse. He could live with it when Wanda didn’t have to see the bruises.

There were no stories to tell, no legacy in flesh, no evidence that he had earned his death. He knew they’d get out of there someday. When the opportunity presented itself, he’d grab Wanda and run as far as he could, with nothing but fast feet to show for it; like Hydra had given him a gift instead of taken from him, ruined him.

Then he got shot and wounded, and bled a lot, and _died._

 

 

People, unlike the children at the playground stopped asking how he got his scars, stopped asking if they could see them and telling him that they were cool. They didn’t even ask why Hydra left so little or why the bullets did. Instead they, scientist, assassin, soldier, and all, down-casted their gaze and looked away respectfully, or made an excuse to leave the room when he had to have the bandages changed.

They weren’t cool anymore, just reminders, just scars.

 _From Hydra, with love_.

Someone was always with him when he woke up to pull his hands away from the tape that had irritated him, from the nasal capsule that itched, and the stitches that pulled flesh, but it was comforting at the same time not to wake up alone after…after what had happened, what had almost happened.

There was something very comforting to wake up to Wanda’s hands working through his hair, whispering to him in their native language that he was safe, that she was safe and reminding him where he was. Or more importantly, she’d reminded him where Hydra wasn’t because sometimes he forgot. Or to feel Barton’s boots gently rocking the bed to the beat of his too loud music, and him grumble complaints about Stark’s new app game.

To hear Natasha humming familiar lullabies when she thought he was still asleep that if he kept his eyes closed he could pretend it was his mother, or Bruce tapping away at his computer and muttering to himself that his results didn’t add up.

Steve sometimes showed him his sketches if he was lucid enough, and Pietro knew just by the look of relief on the Captain’s face that he wasn’t always, and sometimes if Pietro had the energy Steve would pass over paper and pencil. When he didn’t have the energy, the sound of graphite scratching against paper lolled him into a peaceful sleep like being in his father’s office all over again.

Stark always came with music or TV that was never too loud to scare him into consciousness. Or he came with clumsy robots that annoyed the infirmary staff and almost knocked over his IV stand. And sometimes it was Stark and Wanda, and Stark would work while Wanda told him stories of Natasha teaching her new languages until he fell back asleep.

The first time he’d woken up, it was to Tony and Steve arguing over top of him in harsh whispers, that wasn’t really whispering, about tough training schedules and the necessity of them. He’d heard American accents, panicked, and was two blocks away in the blink of an eye, lost, in a city he’d only ever been in once before.

It was Stark who had found him, dressed in his stupid metal suit, in the midst of what they later called a completely justified panic attack but what he could remember of it, it felt like he was dying all over again. He had been bleeding through his gown and from the crook of his elbow, delirious with from pain and painkillers, and trying to hear Wanda on the other side of a brick wall in an alleyway. He had always been able to hear her through the wall between their cells, he couldn’t hear her then, he couldn’t breathe.

The next time he woke up, Wanda reminded what had happened because he couldn’t remember, just that he felt like he was dying. She had said he had ripped the stitches of four of the six wounds and the nurse had given him something to help him sleep. She told him about Barton, that he was safe, that Barton and his wife had named their kid after him. He felt asleep before she told him how they got him back to the infirmary.

There was a map of New York City beside him when he woke up later that night with a note in Wanda’s handwriting that told him not to get lost again, _idiot._

Stark was there when he woke up, more often than not.

He didn’t like Tony Stark; he would never like Tony Stark no matter how often the man was there.

He was just another reminded of his loses, of things that didn’t really leave scars for others to see and sympathize; just another reminder of how he ended up here, on a path he had never wanted, with anger he didn’t know what to do with. His parents had wanted him to be a doctor, to help people, and _he_ had wanted to be a doctor, to help people; he was a patient instead.

Looking at Tony Stark was like having his heart torn open once more, felt like the thin tissue layers where it had never fully healed despite his trying, despite all the time that had passed, had never scarred, were being burnt through carelessly by a repulser blast.

He didn’t like Tony Stark because he took his parents, he took away his home, and he was the reason it felt like Wanda was slipping through his fingers. The girl with his sister’s face that sat in the chair by his bed, that talked to him about American music and American boys, and brought cheeseburgers was someone else, someone new, someone who didn’t look like they were being weighed down by anger, by death, by him. She was moving on from the past, from _their_ past, and that pulled on him like scar tissue.

He hated Tony Stark and his clockwork appearance in the windowless hospital room he wasn’t allowed to leave, that wasn’t really ‘clockwork’ per se, since he was always, _almost always_ , there when Pietro woke up. And Pietro was definitely not sleeping on any sort of clockwork-like schedule. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had told him that Stark didn’t in fact move into the room.

He hated that the man would not leave, even when he had asked, and that he couldn’t force himself to move from the bed. Stark always told him where Wanda was so Pietro dealt with it, not that he had much of a choice.

_Wanda is practicing with Natasha, she’ll be here later._

_Wanda is in the bathroom, give her a minute._

_Wanda is getting lunch, you want something?_

_Wanda is asleep; it’s two in the morning, kid._

_Our favorite witch is on a date with Vision, freaky weird, right?_

“Why are you here?” he asked, two week after waking up, more lucid then he had been in a long time, as exhausted as ever. His voice was scratchy and rusted from disuse, and his words caught painfully in his throat. He didn’t talk much anymore, couldn’t even remember the last time he had. He didn’t have the energy needed to carry on a conversation.

“I’ve got nothing better to do, Sleeping Beauty,” Stark replied casually, but turned down the almost inaudible volume on the TV anyways. He was watching Myth Busters again.

“World needs saving…and all that,” he muttered waving his hand around lazily, whatever _all that_ really was, Tony would know, he was the one saving it. And Stark has claimed on multiple occasions to know everything.

His vision was glazing over and blurred with sleep against his will. His consciousness was being sucked out of him with every syllable that passed over his tongue. It wouldn’t be long before the darkness of sleep pulled him back in.

“Avenging,” Pietro added, trying to get out what he meant without much success. He couldn’t think of anymore words to say, at least not in English, not the right ones.

“Your sister’s got it covered, kid,” he heard Stark say as everything faded out. He didn’t get to ask what that meant before he was peacefully numb to the world.

The next time he woke up he threw Steve’s sketchpad at the wall and demanded to know why no one told him his sister was an Avenger.

He wanted Steve to deny it, to tell him he was wrong, crazy to think such nonsense, and she was…she just wasn’t. But Steve didn’t do that, he just calmly picked up his broken pencil and his bent up book and sighed like the world weighed heavy on his shoulders. His shoulders dropped down, defeated, before he fixed sad, regretful eyes on Pietro.

 “No,” Pietro had said, shaking his head as if he could deny Steve’s stupid eyes or his words when he told him that it had been her choice, that she had asked, volunteered.

She wouldn’t do that, he wanted to say, to scream. She wouldn’t volunteer to another agency with a distressful past and no face; she wouldn’t throw herself into another war that was not hers. She wouldn’t do that to herself, to him.

“No,” he said instead. “Not Wanda, she wouldn’t. No.”

Steve extended him the same curtesy in a quiet voice, said that as soon as the doctors okayed him to leave the infirmary he had a place on the team, that he had proven himself. He told him that he could start training if he wanted. That it was okay if he didn’t, he had optioned. They’d understand, that they’d respect his choice.

“No,” he repeated, the only thing he could say. The only thing that was going through his head, his veins, his entire being was a definite and resounding no.

_No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, nonononononono. No!_

“Pietro,” Steve had said using his soft voice, the one from when the doctors had given him too much morphine and the soldier had been the one to sit with him until Wanda got there. It felt like sandpaper against his eardrums and against his heart, scratching at that parent size wound, scrapping off the scab. He was bleeding all over again.

He had promised.

A promise made, quietly, in secret, years after the wreckage had been cleared away and a restaurant had replaced his childhood home, sitting cross legged in those woods. He had promised his mother, his father, whispered up to the heavens that he would do everything he could to protect Wanda, to keep her safe from harm.

It was them against the rest of the world. It had been since they got pulled out from under that bed.

And now…now Steve Rogers, stupid Captain America and the stupid Avengers were putting her on the front line. They were putting her out there, exposing her to danger and he wasn’t there to stand by her side, to protect her.

He had thought stupidly, _laughably_ thought that after Hydra, after Sokovia, and they finally got away that she would be safe, that there would be nothing left to scar her.

He couldn’t keep his promise from a hospital bed, not when they didn’t tell him stuff like this, not when they lie to him.

“Pietro,” Steve had repeated, his voice holding more urgency than before and there was a hand on his shoulder, ghosting over the phantom limb of his father and it _burnt_.

It burnt more than any cut ever did, any needle, any bullet that had seared its way through him, through organ and flesh.

He flinched away.

“Son,” Steve had said, concerned, hesitant, distressed, leaning over the side of the bed in a way that made Pietro think that he was copying something he’d seen someone do before, something he’d seen someone do for him.

Pietro wanted to laugh at him, wanted to cry.

 _Son_ , what a stupid thing to say; Steve was, like, at most ten years older than him, _tops._

It had been a long time since Pietro had wanted his own father to be there; to put his hand on his should, to pull him into a tight hug, and to call him his son, his boy.

“You have to calm down, Pietro,” Steve had said to him.

Blue eyes stared into the blue eyes of America’s favorite icon. His reflection, his own panicked face stared back at him vacantly through the icy blue hues; Pietro couldn’t bring himself to look past himself to see what else lied into the Captain, to see the worry, the uneasiness, the slight panic that carried through his voice.

“Just breath, okay,” he told him like Pietro wasn’t trying. “I’ll get Wanda. Do you want to see Wanda?”

Pietro shoved at the soldier for even pushing her name through his lips, for invading his space and putting his sister in danger, for taking the oxygen Pietro surely needed.

Steve didn’t even taking a step back, just mildly inconvenienced and even more concerned. Pietro wanted to hit him, slam his fist against his star-spangled face but Steve had leaned out of Pietro’s range.

Breathing turned into wheezing and then into heaving, and for all Steve’s trying he really wasn’t helping.

Pietro knew what a panic attack was now, after Stark had put a name to the death grip on his lungs, to the panic, the need to escape. He knew that it was panic attacks that Mrs. Marcu at the orphanage had called ‘little incidences’ and had told him would go away ‘with time’ but never really did, and he knew that he was having one right now.

Stark never told him how to deal with them, no one did.

There was a hand on his shoulder again, fiery red and hot, burning, agonizing, and it scared him. It didn’t leave when he startled, instead rubbed circles in the taunt muscle underneath the thin hospital shirt in what he thought might have been an attempt at comforting but it wasn’t.

He shoved at the hand before it brunt him from the inside out, before it tainted the memory of his father, before his father’s rough and calloused hand that brought about relief started to burn in his mind. He threw the only thing he could get his hands on, a pillow, at the Steve to stop him from being touched.

The pillow, thin, uncomfortable, and off-white, bounced pathetically off the soldier’s shoulder and onto the floor without so much as a sound.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. get Wanda,” Steve ordered, like Strucker ordered lap after lap in blistering hot sun that left him sore, blistered, dehydrated, and sunburnt, like Dr. List ordered him to drink this, take that, don’t scream, do as he said.

“Pietro,” Steve tried again and Pietro tried to listen over the ocean waved that crashed against his ear drums, not listening had consequences that hurt, he’d learned that a long time ago. “Breath, buddy, come on. I know you can. Wanda will be here soon, she’ll explain everything. Does that sound good?”

Pietro knew that Steve had asked a question but he had been following the first order, _breathe_ , in through his mouth and out through his nose. He had forgotten what the question was now.

“Cap?” sounded from the doorway.

Pietro looked up to see Stark standing, grease stained and goggles pushed up on his forehead. He had been in his lab Pietro noted uselessly, Stark had mentioned fixing the floor Barton shot.

Stark’s eyebrow was raised, questioning, looking past the solider he had addressed and looked directly at him.

“What did you do?” He asked curiously, his question to the Captain but his eyes unwavering. “The kid’s vitals are all over the place.”

“Who told him about Wanda?” Steve had snapped before sighing tiredly, placing his hand back on Pietro’s shoulder once more before removing it, like he had forgotten that it burnt.

“I don’t, - oh,” Tony stopped mid-step and cringed. “Shit. I didn’t think he’d – thought he was asleep.”

“Can you fix this?” Steve asked. “I don’t, I can’t–”

“Piety,” Stark said, suddenly at his side despite not having heard him move from the door. “Come on, Speedy. Look up, that’s right, let me see those baby blues.”

Pietro looked up, looked at Stark who had kept his stance open, unguarded, unprotected, nonthreatening, easy to be hit with not enough time to react. His arms were out to his side, his eyes on him, and his hands stayed to himself. He could be caught off guard if Pietro wanted to, and he thought that Stark probably knew that too. He looked too honest, open, like he really wanted to help get the oxygen back into the room but…

But he was Tony Stark.

He was the weapons dealer that killed his parents and created the robot army that destroyed his home, his life.

All the ‘too whom it may concern’ bullets that had hit him, had wounded and killed him; they had once been held in the hands of the man in front of him, had been fired from his gun because that was what Ultron was, Tony Stark’s.

It was he who helped create the team that was going to mar and bruise and get his sister killed.

Stark leaned over the guard railing on the bed, putting his dirty arm down on his pristine sheets, next to his blanket covered leg, but he didn’t touch him.

“It helps to think about something else,” he shrugged. “At least for me it does. Think about…what do you like?”

“Wanda,” he grasped.

“Okay?” Stark replied after a beat. “A bit of codependency is not _that_ bad of a thing, I guess. Think about Wanda.”

“You’re going to get her killed.”

“Okay, okay, don’t think about Wanda,” Tony said quickly. “Think about…oh! Think about giant squids!”

“Eh?”

“What?” Steve questioned from the other side of Pietro’s bed.

“Yeah, remember, kiddo, the documentary on Animal Planet last week,” Stark grinned, clapping his hands together and nodding. “Yeah, yeah, giant squids are just so…”

“Big?” he asked with a laugh that forced air to scrap across his larynx, sending him into a coughing fit. “Giant squids, big.”

“So big,” Stark argued. “Right, Cap?”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed in a cross between total confusion, worry, and the slightest hint of amusement. “Yeah, really big.”

“And they fight whales, right?” Tony continued like that was just the coolest thing ever. And considering that he didn’t shut up during the entire documentary he might have thought that it was. “That is, like Romanoff level badass, eh? Speedy?”

“Nat – Natasha,” he breathed, forcing air out of his mouth before sucking in as much as he could. “She could beat a squid.”

“Slow your breathing down,” Stark instructed softly before scoffing like Pietro had said something more absurd than this entire conversation. “But a _giant_ squid? No way.”

“Yes” he replied, rubbing at the ache in his chest, just left of the bandage with the injury that had almost ended his life, feeling his heart pound painfully against his ribcage. “Even giant squids.”

“You okay, kid?” Stark asked sincerely, genuine, like he really cared.

Pietro nodded.

‘ _Panic attacks, nothing to be embarrassed about, kid,’_ Stark had said after the first one. _‘You’re not the only one to get them. No shame.’_

And despite all that Pietro could still feel the brush crawl up his neck, could still feel the need to hide himself for appearing weak in front of these people.

Stark nodded back, patting his arm lightly before straightening up, “I still say a giant squid could take Romanoff down with one tentacle behind its back.”

“Unbelievable,” Steve swore under his breath before the door busted open.

It slammed into the wall behind it with enough force that Pietro nearly jumped out of his skin and he was pretty sure that the doorknob had become one with the wall.

Wanda was standing there, as out of breathe as he had been just moments before, with Barton on her heels and sweat dripping down her nose.

“Kid?” Barton asked before dawning realization befell his features. Barton was always perceptive. “Shit, who–”

“Tony.”

“It was an accident.”

“Pietro?” Wanda said, asking everything with just his name.

He felt the calm, as little as it was, that he had got from the absurdity of the Giant Squid vs Natasha Romanoff debate, dry up and crackle into dust at the look of his sister. At the worry on her face and in her words, at the tone muscles in her arms that he had not noticed before, at the bruise along her jaw that she had covered with too much make-up so he wouldn’t notice.

“You lied to me,” he said, thickly, his accent thicker than he like it to be when in front of the Avengers. The room went quiet, went still, like a freeze frame and he knew, with surety that he was right. They had lied to him, all of them.

“Piet–”

“You’re an Avenger.”

He sounded accusing, spiteful; spitting the words out in the same way he used to curse the name of Tony Stark, of Hydra. She flinched.

“I – I was going to tell you,” she said hesitantly, sending Tony a pleading look for help.

Something in Pietro burnt like betrayal, like hot metal, like bullets through the chest, because that look used to be sent to him. She trusted Stark, had a relationship with Tony freaking Stark that she could send him a look and he not only knew the significance of it but was opening his mouth to defend her, to help her.

“Don’t,” he snapped.

He was being replaced by Stark; he _had_ been replaced by Stark, by the man who had killed their parents. She was his teammate now and…and she had kept that from him, had lied to him, for…for a long time, for the first time in as long as he could remember. It hurt, a lot.

“Get out,” he said, snapped, leaning back into the pillow that wasn’t there. “I’m tired, go.”

“P–”

“Go!” he growled at her. He couldn’t do this, not right now, not when he was angry, hurt, and had nothing but Wanda to take it out on. “Please, go Wanda.”

He had squeezed his eyes shut, waiting to hear the echo of footsteps on cream colored tiles and the door being yanked from the wall. And after what felt like an eternity he heard a despondent exhalation and retreating footsteps. Only after he heard the door click shut did he open his eyes.

“I told you to go,” he said coldly, glaring.

“And I didn’t,” she replied just as cold, putting her hands on hips like their mother used to do.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Too bad,” she fired back, moving away from the door to pick up the discarded pillow from the floor. “I am your sister and we talk.”

“ _I’ll_ leave then,” he shot back at her, pushing his hands below him to lift himself from the mattress. The pillow that hit him in the side of the head knocked him back on his ass, the movement, little as it was, made his chest feel like it had been set ablaze.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said instead of _like you could anyways._ Voice as icy and as cold as Sokovian winters and her hard glare was set on him as she took a seat next to him.

“Wanda.”

“No, Pietro,” she snapped. “I’m not leaving until we talk about this, like adults. Can you be an adult? For once.”

“How long have you been on the Avengers?” he asked through clenched teeth, angry at his weakness, his inability to run, with her deceit. He remembered all those stories that Stark had muttered during the commercials of Family Feud when he was still hazy from the blood loss and painkillers.

Every ‘we kicked Von Doom’s ass today’ and ‘I can’t believe that Asgardian woman took out half the team’ and ‘team headed out to kick Hydra ass in Nebraska so it’s just us, kid’ replayed through his mind. Every mission that had failed, every mention of injury, of exhaustion, overextension, nightmare, and almost death; his sister had been out there, a part of that, and he hadn’t even known.

“Three weeks,” she said, pursing her lips. Her eyes slide from his to the floor like she did when she said the headaches weren’t _that_ bad, that she could handle what Hydra was demanding from her when they both were ran ragged. She was lying, again.

She was lying to him, again.

“Three weeks,” he repeated flatly.

“Three weeks after,” she swallowed hard, pushing her hair from her face. “After the battle of Sokovia.”

“When I was dead?” he asked, blinking hard against the heat in his eyes, feeling the same kind of helplessness he felt the first time Strucker had dragged Wanda away to where he couldn’t follow.

“You weren’t dead,” she responded sharply, latching onto his hand. ‘You _weren’t_ dead. You were in a coma, Pietro.”

“It felt like death.”

“I _know_ ,” she snapped, her voice breaking like glass that cut against his ears before breathing in sharply, angrily, hopelessly. It was his time to avert his eyes. “I know, I felt it. I…I couldn’t just sit here.”

“I can’t protect you out there,” he whispered, wiping angrily at his eyes. ‘You went without me. You left me behind.”

“I couldn’t sit here when they didn’t know if you were going to make it or not,” she told him, tears falling freely. “I could – you were so still and pale; I could feel you go in and out of being alive and it, I was so empty. I couldn’t just do nothing, Pietro. I couldn’t just sit here and watch you fade out.”

“But you lied,” he snapped. “You went without me into another war and you didn’t tell me. All those, those lessons with Natasha; you said she was teaching you Russian.”

“She is.”

“That’s not all, no?” he accused, daring her to lie to him. “That’s not all of it.”

“No,” she admitted. “No, it’s not. But I don’t have to tell you everything.”

“Yes you do!” he exclaimed. “I’m your brother!”

“Exactly!” she snapped back at him, her voice an octave or two higher, her eyes flashing red. “You are my brother, not my father. Stop trying to be him.”

“I made a promise,” he told her solemnly, quietly. Her words hitting where she knew it would hurt and he refused to let her see that, even if he couldn’t wipe away the tears fast enough. “I promised them I would protect you.”

“They never asked.”

“They didn’t have to,” he replied roughly.

“You shouldn’t have made the promise,” she told him, voice hard. Her jaw was set, definite, and her arms crossed. Her words cut him like no knife ever would. “Don’t promise things you cannot keep.”

“It was supposed to be us,” he said quietly. “Me and you, against the world.”

“But it doesn’t have to be.”

“Why not?” he asked. “What was so bad when it was just us?”

“Hydra,” she supplied with an incredulous laugh. “Hydra and being homeless, and the riots, and fighting; stitching up wounds that you got with the same needle I sewed up ripped jeans, being cold, Pietro, and not being about to go to the hospital when we needed to. Being lonely, lonely when you got yourself arrested or drunk, or just didn’t come home; that was what was bad. We don’t have to be scared anymore.”

“I was never scared,” he denied.

“You were always scared,” she replied with finality, with one hundred percent absolute surety that she was right. She might have been fine about lying to him but he couldn’t lie to her so he did what he always did, he deflected.

“You’re teammates with the man who killed our parents,” he stated. “He ruined our lived.”

“We ruined our lives,” she told him plainly. “We decided that the orphanage wasn’t good enough, we didn’t finish school, we got in fights, we got arrested, we joined the protests. It was _us,_ not Tony Stark, who signed up for _Hydra.”_

“We thought they were SHIELD.”

“Still our decision,” she told him shaking her head. “And yes, Stark made the weapon that killed our parents, but we almost ended the _world_. It was our revenger that led us down this path and look at what _we_ caused. We don’t have a home to return to, Pietro, Sokovia is in ruins. We did that.”

“We were tricked,” he told her. “Hydra tricked us, Ultron tricked us.”

“Yes,” she agreed because it was undeniably true that they’d had the wool pulled over their eyes one too many times. ‘But we have to take responsibility for our actions, for the part we played, like Tony had to take responsibility for his.”

“What about our revenge, justice for Ma and Da?” he asked. It was the only think he had beside her, and he was losing her to their killer.

“It won’t bring them back, Pietro,” she said to him. “It will not fill the gap and they wouldn’t want this, not from you.”

“It’s all I have.”

“No it’s not,” she replied quickly, her icy voice melting into warmth, into comfort. She put her hand in his once more. “You have me, like you always have. And Steve now, and Clint, and the Avengers; I’m helping people here, with the Avengers. I help people and I thought, I thought you’d join me when you could. You always wanted to help people.”

“Ultron was supposed to be a onetime thing,” he said, pulling his hand from hers. A part of him felt bad about the look of hurt that passed over her face but she had stabbed him in the chest with the memory of their father so he felt a little justified. “We were not supposed to be Avengers.”

“You walked out the door,” she said to him. “Clint, Barton said if you walk out that door you’re an Avenger. You _ran_ out the door.”

“ _We_ weren’t supposed to be Avengers,” he repeated. “Not…not forever.”

“But I am. And you can be too, again. If you wanted to.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked quietly. “Why’d you lie?”

“You were weak,” she stated plainly and it hurt to hear those words from her, to hear her say what he had already known. “The battle left you weak, and you were fighting your own battle, one for your life. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“What if you had got hurt?” he questioned. “When you decided not to tell me, what if you got hurt? Or, or before I woke up? What if you had _died_? Would anyone had told me or would that have been a secret too?”

“I didn’t get hurt.”

“But you could have.”

“And you did,” she told him. “You died, on the battle field.”

“I had to,” he replied. “To save Barton and the child.”

“We both know you could have got all of you out of the way,” she said, her voice as stony and as cold as the frown on her face. “We both know.”

“Wanda,” he said to her, his veins running cold, shock colored his voice, etched itself on his face. ‘That’s not–”

“I can see inside your head,” she explained sullenly shrugging her shoulders. “You dream….loudly. And I can see it. Everything is red in your head.”

“That’s not…” he trailed off, not knowing what to say. “Please.”

Pleased what, he wasn’t sure. Please forget, please don’t mention it ever again, don’t tell the others, please. Please forgive him.

“It’s okay with you, risking your life,” she shuttered, new tears in her eyes that had yet to fall. “As long as you’re the one that does; you were fine with leaving me along but the possibility of me doing that to you? You couldn’t stand for that, right?”

“You said to go!” he shouted desperately. ‘You said go help the others when I wanted to stay right beside you. You said go.”

“I didn’t say go get yourself killed, Pietro!”

“It’s not like that,” he tried. “I didn’t want to leave you.”

“No, no you didn’t,” she agreed. “You just wanted another scar.”


	2. Chapter 2

Walking was exhausting.

A lot of things were exhausting now. Sitting, talking, taking pills, smiling, pretending to not be physically and emotionally falling to pieces were exhausting, even more so since he hadn’t been able to sleep.

He used to run all over the city when he couldn’t sleep, used to pace back and forth and bounced off the walls of his cell in the Hydra facility, but it wasn’t an option right now and that frustrated him. The nurses at the infirmary, with their brittle smiles and their tired eyes, offered him medication to help him sleep but it never did. It just knocked him out for half the day, trapped him in nightmares of Wanda getting shot, getting stabbed, getting blown up with a missile labeled Stark and him being too slow to save her.

He always woke up more tired than before, shaken and disoriented and the last time he’d kicked an orderly that looked a little too much like Strucker.

He was tired, bone weary exhaustion that weighed him down like a stone, and he had been since he pretended to be asleep when Wanda had come to reconcile. He hadn’t been ready to talk to her, not then. Nor had he been ready to eat greasy American food or watch a movie that _the Avengers swear it’s funny, come on Pietro, wake up._

It had been easier to pretend to be asleep, than to forgive.

He wasn’t really sure if he was ready now.

His mind had ran circles, until he was dizzy and frustrated, around what the real cause of his anger was, and if it had more to do with her moving on from their past when he hadn’t been able to than with her being an Avenger. It was strenuous and annoying and brought about no answers and far too many questions.  She had taken a sledgehammer to all his defenses, too all the things he had held onto, all that had kept him angry and fighting, all those things that he hadn’t really dealt with, had never wanted to deal with.

He avoid all thoughts of what would happen if he gave up on everything that had kept him going all those years, if he gave up on the anger, the revenge, the need and desire to protect his sister, to protect the only thing that had ever mattered in his life. And what it would mean if he did, if the scars became just scars, instead of stories, instead of his legend.

Who was he, the question filtered lazily over the hazy sleeplessness; who was he if he was not angry, if he was not a protector, if he didn’t have Wanda?

He thought bitterly that she didn’t even need him anymore.

She was an Avenger without.

She was training and practicing, and probably doing a lot of other things that she hadn’t told him about, without him. She could survive without him and he didn’t think he could if she wasn’t there.

His mind tore, and thrashed, and destroyed anything that floated through his cognizance about the battle in Sokovia, about why he ran in front of those bullets and didn’t move out of the way, about what Wanda thought she knew and what she did. He couldn’t help to latch desperately onto the hurt and frustration that she had read his mind, had looked inside his head without his permission and took a peak at something he, himself, couldn’t quite deal with right now. The frustration was better than the overwhelming hopelessness he felt.

He knew, though, deep in his tired bones that he’d forgive her. He always did. He always would. That he had no choice now but to jump back into a war he didn’t know he was a part of because she was still Wanda, just different, older, mature, and he still loved her. He still had his promise.

He just – it hurt, being lied to felt like breaking a bottle against his head and finding out that it was her who had been lying, that it was her choice that they all lie to him, felt like she had thrusted the jagged edges into his heart.

She hadn’t come back, not yet, even though he knew that she knew he was awake the last time. That was two days ago; a part of him was afraid that she never would, that he’d lost her forever.

He had decided he’d find her instead.

He pulled himself out of the bed. He put his sock covered feet into thin hospital slippers and moved one foot in front of the other on shaky legs and a will that could not be broken through the door. If he just saw that she was okay, he could, sleep, could breathe.

He was supposed to call for a nurse, had been told explicitly to call for a nurse, if he needed to, so much as, go to the bathroom. They had told him of the dangers of fainting, of slipping or falling, and the delays that overexertion could cause.

But Wanda’s words ran still, echoed around the room like it was mocking him, bouncing from wall to wall inside his head, shattering through every thought, every memory.

 _Weak_.

She had hurt his pride and he thought that she knew it, that she wanted to do just that.

He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to say anything to her when he did finally find her or if he wanted to lash out, wanted to spit out scathing words that would hurt her. But he was not weak, despite what she thought she knew. He could prove that, at least.

If she could go out there fighting who-knew-what with a couple of mind tricks and energy force fields than he could do something as simple as this. He just had to continue walking, to stay vertical, which was exhausting…and against doctors’ orders.

He caught sight of his reflection in the paneling beside the elevator.

Standing, he thoughts as he waited for the elevator to come to his floor, was also exhausting, even more so.

His reflection looked like shit. Empty eyes surrounded by dark circles and hollow cheekbones. His hair was a disaster, curlier than it had been in years, disheveled and standing on end. The dark circles weren’t surprising considering his exhaustion. Neither was the paleness considering he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the sun but combined with the weight loss, it almost knocked him off his feet.

He looked like a corpse which he supposed was appropriate considering he’d almost been one; a corpse in need of a shave.

He laughed to himself, his reflection’s dry lips curled up around the corners like old newspaper, at the thought of the day Wanda came trotting into the room with a razor she’d stolen from Banner and determination across her features. She told him she was going to get rid of that god-awful beard if it was the last thing she did.

There was nothing he could do about it, she told him, spreading shaving cream all over his face. He should accept his fate.

He had laughed then too.

Then the smile slipped from his face when he remembered Wanda, the smiling girl who had hummed to him as she carefully ran the razor over his jaw transformed into the woman whose eyes flashed red and threw biting words at him, who looked inside his head and knew his secrets. He remembered that she had lied, that she was lying that day too.

 _‘You’re supposed to be bedridden, Mr. Maximoff,’_ a voice spoke, feminine, Irish, direct and to the point. It scared him half to death before he remembered Stark’s fancy AI system. “ _I have orders that you are not to leave the infirmary.’_

“I’m leaving,” he replied.

 _‘You are not allowed to leave the infirmary, Mr. Maximoff,’_ the voice repeated, closing the elevator doors anyways but he didn’t feel the cart move.

“Says who?” he asked the ceiling.

_‘Mr. Stark.’_

“Stark can’t hold me against my will.”

 _‘You are not allowed to leave the infirmary, Mr. Maximoff,’_ the voice repeated once more.

“I need to talk to my sister,” he told the computer. “Please.”

 _‘I have my orders, Mr. Maximoff,’_ the voice replied calmly, monotonous, annoying. _‘I cannot break them.’_

“Who says you can’t break orders?” he asked curiously followed by a long pause where he swore he could hear her gears turning.

 _‘No one,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. finally spoke.

“I say you can break your orders,” he said, fighting a grin. ‘Does that work?”

 _‘I suppose so, Mr. Maximoff,’_ the AI replied, causing the elevator to start descending. ‘ _Mr. Stark will fix that later, Mr. Maximoff.’_

“I’ll take the stairs next time,” he smirked before leaning back heavily against the wall. His legs felt shaky beneath him, like they couldn’t hold his weight, and his chest burnt with every breath.

Then the doors opened.

 

“Feel better?”

The question was muffled behind a hand pressed against his nose because Stark was bleeding; thick droplets of crimson dripped down and over his lips before being wiped away roughly.

Pietro didn’t move from where he was leaning heavily against the wall, didn’t look up to see the full force of Stark’s glare that was weighing him down. He felt kind of bad for hitting him, felt more than annoyed that the infirmary staff discovered him missing faster than he thought they would and that Stark’s fancy AI conspired against him but Stark had deserved it.

He really had.

He had gripped onto Pietro’s bicep with a hand that stung like frostbite, that froze his veins and his heart and his mind. He had squeezed too tight on his arm when Pietro had stumbled, had tripped over his feet trying to push past the engineer that had been waiting when the elevator doors had opened.

Pietro had told him no, had said to let go but his words got jumbled, and thick, and not English. And when Stark didn’t move his hand fast enough, he swung at him. He stumbled over to the wall and Tony had stumbled to the other. The distance made breathing easier.

Stark responded first, always one to get the first word in and the last word out, over Pietro’s harsh breathing and the buzzing in his ears. _Feel better._

Did he feel better? Was hitting something what he needed?

“No.”

No, he didn’t feel better he felt annoyed, and tired, and fucking lied to by a stupid computer he thought he’d outsmarted.

“Come on,” Stark replied, wiping the blood from his nose onto his dark jeans.

“I’m not going back,” he blurted out, staggering away from Stark’s outstretched hand. “Not yet.”

He had to see Wanda or all of this was for nothing. They’d tell her, tell her that he didn’t make it, that he was weak. He couldn’t have it, couldn’t have her thinking that about him so he had to get to her, to talk to her, to see if she was safe, alive.

“I got that when you punched me,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “We’re going to sit down before you fall over and I have your sister on my ass about it.”

“I’m not going to fall over,” he said pushing himself off the wall as if to prove his point, only to fall back into it with a grunt.

“Yeah, that’s convincing,” Tony replied monotonous. “Hold on.”

And with that the genius walked away, down the hallway and out of Pietro’s sight without so much as a look back.

A part of him that sounded a little too much like him at eleven said _good_ , that he hoped Stark didn’t come back, that he didn’t need Tony Stark like he didn’t need friends. Another part of him, that same angry eleven year old, felt hurt that he wouldn’t, that someone else was giving up on him and leaving him because he was too damaged, too tarnished.

There was a bigger part of him, a logical part that sounded suspiciously like his mother, that told him Stark would come back. His father’s voice whispered across his mind with a scathing prediction that he’d bring a big Strucker-like orderly from the infirmary to drag his ass back to that damn bed and that he should make himself scarce before it happened.

The rest of him – the muscles in his legs, the energy that was waning, his stitches – viciously laughed at him with Wanda’s voice that he wouldn’t make it to the end of the hallway if he tried, she’d been right all along.

He’d get up in a minute, take the stairs and continue his search for his sister. He’d do it in a minute, just…let him rest for a minute.

“Hey kid.”

Pietro startled, his eyes snapping open and his breathe caught in his throat. Before he knew it Stark had his own hand wrapped around his fist.

“Wake up calls for Speedy Gonzolas, bad idea,” he replied. “Duly noted. Stop trying to break my nose, kid.”

“Eh?” he asked confused, blinking away the nap he didn’t know he was taking.

Oh yeah, the hallway. He was supposed to go find Wanda.

“Come on, kiddo,” Stark coaxed. “I’m going to help you up so…don’t punch me.”

Tony didn’t move until Pietro nodded and then he stuck out his hand for Pietro to grab.

“Gee, kid, you’re heavier than you look,” Stark huffed as he helped Pietro get to his feet before dropping him into a rolling desk chair.

“Not a kid,” he muttered.

“Yeah, and I’m not a genius.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Rude, Piety, just rude,” Stark replied before pushing the chair in the direction he had disappeared down earlier.

“How do I know you’re not taking me back to the, uh…” he trailed off waving his hand around. “That place.”

“Have I lied to you yet?” Stark asked back lightly.

“Wanda.”

“I didn’t lie,” he shrugged. “You never asked.”

Pietro didn’t think that was a good enough reason to keep something from him but instead of telling Tony so he replied with, “the computer in the elevator lied.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. is an AI, she makes her own decisions.”

“That’s what you need,” he muttered. “More free thinking computers.”

“You’re grouchy when you’re tired.”

“I’m not tired,” he replied. “Where are you taking me?”

“I’ve got to show you something, kid,” Stark replied. “Now don’t punch me when we get into the elevator, okay.”

Stark pushed the chair into the elevator at the other end of the hall. Pietro blocked out Tony when he gave F.R.I.D.A.Y. instructions, too busy trying to remain seated vertically when the elevator started to move up. Pietro pushed himself out of the chair when the elevator stopped and stumbled until he found his footing.

“Don’t fall on your ass,” Stark stated and Pietro glared at him. “I know, I know, you’re not going to fall. Sue me for not wanting your scary witch sister to fry my mind.”

“Wanda can’t do that.”

“As far as you know,” he muttered when the door opened.

Pietro dragged his feet out of the room and looked up to find the remains of what appeared to have been a greenhouse. The walls were skeletons of bend and broken metal beams with the glass inside them crack, broken, destroyed, or missing. The tiles had probably once been pristine white and clean were now caked with dust, dirt, shards of glass and clay, and overturned flowered pots.

Pietro wondered if Bruce had hulked out, had worried that Bruce had hulked out in this room with Wanda, who he had threatened to kill all that time ago.

“It was supposed to be a gift.”

Pietro didn’t turn around, not at the sound of Tony’s voice even though it scared him, nor did he turn at the sound of glass cracking under boots or the elevator door closing behind him.

“Stark.”

It wasn’t quite a question and Stark hadn’t offered any explanation. Pietro didn’t need to turn to look at the engineer to know that he had that ‘smartest-guy-in-the-room’ grin on his face; he could practically feel it pressing against the back of his neck. Stark oozed smugness like the hottest of Sokovian day, it was irritating, suffocating.

“A gift for Bruce,” Stark continued. “The greenhouse, for when he returned from his impromptu vac. Wanda put it to use before he got to see it.”

“Wanda?”

Wanda was not violent by nature; she never had been, not even with her powers. She never had to be because he was, because she could manipulate and trick people into causing their own destruction. She didn’t have to use fist. She wouldn’t do something like this, wouldn’t thoroughly destroy for no reason.

“Yeah, our dear Wanda did this.”

“No,” he shook his head. “Why? Why would she–”

“You, uh…” Tony said, running his hand through his hair uneasily. “A week after you were brought up here, you gave out.”

“Gave out?” he asked. The air suddenly felt as if it had dropped five degrees in the space of a heartbeat as the gravity of what those words meant set in. “Oh.”

“Yeah, yeah, flatlined,” Tony replied. He exhaled loudly with a shrug that didn’t quite convey the nonchalance he wanted and didn’t soften the blow of his words nearly as much as he was banking on. The _no big deal_ fell flat of being convincing, of being anything but terrible. “We got you up and running again, obviously, but Wanda had destroyed this wing thoroughly beforehand.”

“She can…overreact,” he said looking away from the destruction.

“I think she acted pretty accordingly,” Tony shrugged again. “But you know, not a great judge of character, me. At least that’s what Pepper says.”

“Was that when she….” He trailed off, looking away from Tony’s too serious eyes and back over the destruction.

“Yeah,” he told him softly. “Yeah, she talked to Steve soon after that, started training the next day.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, _oh,_ it settled heavy in him, like stones, like vibranium built robots trying to pull him through the floor. She had thought he was on the mend and then that happened; that was the tipping point, the join-the-Avengers point.

She destroyed a room because of him.

He felt sick, felt as weak as Wanda said he was.

“Are you alright, kid?” Stark asked taking a step towards him, and then another. Pietro thought he was going to reach for him, touch him and burn him like Steve had.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice sounding all wrong, sounding broken and high. It was said too quickly to be true, to defensive to be right. Was he fine? “Can we leave?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied.

“I’m sorry,” Pietro blurted out as the elevator doors closed on the destruction. Sorry to Stark, to the room that never got to fulfill its purpose, to Bruce who never got his gift. And to Wanda for it was she he had hurt the most, had wounded without thought, had scarred like Hydra had scarred.

“No problem,” he heard, startling him and then there was something pushing lightly against his shaking knees. “Sit down, kid.”

He didn’t bother to tell Stark he wasn’t going to fall down.


	3. Chapter 3

“Welcome to Lab 2.0,” Stark said when the doors swished open and the lights flickered on. “Ya’know, now that you’re actually invited by your truly.”

Everything was as shiny and as futuristic looking as it was the last time he’d seen it, still all exposed steel and glass paneling, and like last time it still felt cozy. Despite the slick glass and shining steel, despite the lack of personal touches and fingerprints, Stark’s lab felt like it was a home, lived in and well-loved, looked after and cared for.

Stark pushed the chair away from him with all his strength and Pietro had to stop himself from running chest-first into a table. “I’ve got some work to do, Speedy, so if you wanna go back to the infirmary–”

“I don’t,” he cut off as Stark dropped into a chair next to him with a broken circuit board from the Iron Man suit, a screwdriver, and a pair of wire cutters. He pointed the wire cutters in his direction and hazardously waved them around, “stop picking at those.”

Confusion crossed over Pietro’s face before he followed the direction of the wire cutters to where his fingers scratched across the surface of the stitches at his shoulder. He hadn’t realized he’d been scratching at them but he was all too aware of how much they itched. “It’s fine.”

“Cho will be pissed if you bleed out again.”

“It’s – oh.”

“I told you!” Stark exclaimed, pushing his own chair away from the table before riffling through a drawer across the room. He returned with a large first aid kit. “You need a Band-Aid? I’ll get you a Band-Aid.”

“I don’t need –”

“Yes you do.”

“Band-Aids don’t fix bullet holes.”

“Seriously,” Stark responded fixing him with a look that said he didn’t quite believe what he had just heard and then he tossed a box of Captain America Band-Aids at his head. Pietro caught them. “When would you have even heard that song? Was Hydra secretly Taylor Swift fans? Did they belt out Blank Space, did they Shake It Off? This changes my whole outlook on…everything, really.”

“Wanda,” Pietro answered, forgoing the Band-Aids and grabbing a wet-wipe. It’d already stopped bleeding, but he applied a Band-Aid anyways after cleaning up the worse of the blood, just to appease Stark. “She’s been Americanized.”

“Oh, tragic.”

“I know.”

“Who was the Sokovian T-Swift?”

“I’ve been imprisoned in a Hydra facility since I was fifteen,” Pietro answered.

“You’re no fun, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.”

Stark didn’t talk while he tinkered, other than the occasional question to F.R.I.D.A.Y., he worked with a focus that Pietro hadn’t even seen on the battlefield and with a heavy kind of intensity that clouded the air around him. It was like he had blocked out the rest if the world. AC/DC had been switched to something more soothing and the volume had been turned from its deafening pulsing beat to something that didn’t aggravate the headache forming behind Pietro’s right eye. It wasn’t like Tony was hearing it anyways.

Pietro didn’t exactly want to talk to Stark, he never really did. He, for the most part never wanted to be in the same room as him. He'd only left the infirmary to find Wanda, to disconfirm her belief that he was weak, that she was right when she had peeked into his head. But Wanda wasn’t there and all he had been left with was his thoughts and Stark’s silence.

It was eerie and weird, and Pietro’s mind was vicious, and nasty, and it tore, and stabbed, and wounded itself until everything hurt and nothing made any sense. 

He felt the full weight of _everything_ – of sitting next to his parents’ killer, from being civil with a mass murderer, of the greenhouse, broken and destroyed, and what he had done – fall down on him and try to suffocate him. It felt like he had the whole of Sokovia sitting on his chest, crushing him with their dead, and their destruction, and the lives he helped destroy.

It felt like he had failed his country, failed Wanda, and the promise he had made to his parents.

“You alright?” Stark asked, looking up at him before going back to his board.

“Eh?”

“You’ve not blinked for like two minutes,” Stark shrugged not looking up from the board. “I know that Iron Man poster is sweet as hell but it’s kinda, really creepy.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped, defensive though he knew not why. “Just leave me alone.”

He just needed Stark to leave him alone, to let him sort out his head and his thoughts and all that had transpired in the many months before. He needed time and he needed Wanda. He needed everything to not quite be so much.

“Nah,” Stark responded. He didn’t pause in his work and Pietro wondered if Stark had not so much blocked him out than he had blocked Stark out. “I kind of own this building so really, I can do whatever I want.”

“Avenger building, not Stark building.”

“I am an Avenger,” he replied.

“And I’m not?”

“Is that you accepting Cap’s offer?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what Wanda wanted anymore. If she didn’t want him around he would respect that, he’d let her go free, and he’d leave for somewhere else. He just wanted her happy. 

“Why didn’t you go?” he asked instead. “With the Avengers.”

“I’m technically unofficially retired,” Tony shrugged. “Bruce is kicking around here somewhere.”

“Because you’re old?”

“No, not because I’m old,” he responded indignantly. “I go out for the big ones; this one isn’t one of those.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s less Von Doom and gloom and more PR Hell,” he replied. “They’ll be back tomorrow. Plus, someone has to be here to make sure you don’t fall on your ass.”

“I’m not going to fall over!”

“Well, yeah, Speedy, you’re sitting down,” he shugged. “Welcome.”

“So kid,” Stark continued after Pietro didn’t respond. He glared at the engineer. “Right, not a kid, whatever. What prompted your great escape?”

“None of your business,” he grumbled.

“I think it was to see your sis,” he continued on like he did when Pietro was half-asleep and drugged out of his mind. “But she’s not here, so answer some of my questions.”

“I don’t have to,” Pietro muttered passing Stark a look that said he’d rather go one on one with Romanoff. Tony sent him back a look that said he could arrange it.

“Were you trying to get yourself killed out there?”

“Eh?” he asked, sitting up straighter, all feelings of exhaustion gone and in its place shock and panic.

“In Sokovia, against Ultron,” Stark expanded, not taking his eyes off the white haired Speedster. “Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

“What – what are you talking about?”

“I listened to the audio of your tiff with your sister,” he replied. “I know invasion of privacy and all that, but I’m nosy and I’m playing the role of over-protective dad.”

 “You’re not my father,” he snapped.

“Which is why it’s just a role,” Stark replied easily. “Just a role. Children are so not my thing, but Cap’s playing worried soccer mom so hey! That’s cool right?”

Pietro’s glare gave Tony the impression that he didn’t think that a cool in the slightest, which meant the kid wasn’t picturing it correctly because it was frinkin’ hilarious.

“I’m not a child.”

“You sure acted like one.”

“No I didn’t.”

“And,” Stark continued undeterred. “I learned a few things, like your apparent death wish. Was Wanda right?”

“No.”

“She seemed pretty sure of it,” Stark shrugged. “And she’s kind of our human lie detector so…I’m thinking you’re the one lying.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Now I know you are, Speed. So, were you trying to get yourself killed?”

Pietro didn’t respond, didn’t bother to even look at Stark. He set his jaw and told himself to say no more, told himself that you could not reason with people who already believed they had all the fact, that they were right. He wasn’t sure what he felt, if Pietro was being honest, he wasn’t sure if he ran out there with any intentions other than getting Barton out of the way. He just knew that he didn’t want to have this conversation more than once and he definitely didn’t want to have it with Tony Stark.

He briefly entertained the idea of leaving, of darting out of the room at his max speed, running out of the building and into the busy streets of New York City. He thought about getting lost and becoming someone new, someone else, someone who didn’t have so much to figure out. But moving took energy and energy he didn’t have.

He thought, maybe, he could get Stark off topic, could get him angry and defensive, rile up the genius until he forgot. He thought about spitting back at Stark that he was the murderer they both knew he was, thought about bringing up his parents, Sokovia, Ultron. He thought about painting the Merchant of Death in red, holding his head under all the blood that he spilt.

Pietro knew where to hit Tony to make it hurt, to make it bruise, cut, scar. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to hurt the genius, not in that way, and bringing up his parents felt like being gutted with a hot blade. Pietro’s hands were stained in their own way and would never be scrubbed clean. He had too many regrets to use another man’s against him.

Pietro didn’t have Tony’s defense mechanism, he wasn’t as clever, didn’t have wit. Tony Stark’s greatest weapon was his mouth, it wasn’t Pietro’s, and he didn’t know if he had skin thick enough to go up against it.

“I need to know if you’re thinking about being an Avenger,” Stark eventually said after the silence that stretched around them didn’t include Pietro walking out.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because no one is letting you out there again if you were,” he replied quickly. “You’re close call hit us all, but no one more than your sister. We’re a team, team’s gotta stick together. Cap knows this guy, metal wings and everything. Good guy, he can help you.”

“I don’t – I never thought I’d live this long.”

“Well…” Stark said after a beat, like he had to process what he had said to its fullest. “That’s bleak.”

“With the protests,” Pietro explained. “And the war, and…what happened to our parents. I figured my luck was running out and it did. We have, had people, good people who could look after Wanda if something…if something happened to me. Then Hydra kept…kept injecting and cutting and…you know they took out my appendix? I don’t know why.”

“And then out there on the field?”

“I saved Barton.”

“It almost cost you your life.”

“You’d do the same.”

“I have a metal suit.”

“It was worth it,” Pietro replied. He meant it, saving Barton and that kid, he’d do it a million times over without a single regret.

“You could have died.”

“I didn’t die.”

“You nearly did.”

“But I didn’t,” he insisted. “I just, I got…new scars, more scars.”

“You like those?” Stark asked. “The scars?”

He shrugged. It wasn’t that simple.

They were his story, his legacy. It let him take control over his life and let him let go of that control all at the time. But then Hydra came and took that away from him, and now, he’d almost lost Wanda over them. He might still have lost her. He didn’t know what he felt anymore, only that it was a lot, too much.

“At the park,” he stated then shook his head when Stark raised an eyebrow at him. “There was a park, uh, down the road…in Sokovia. The boys there used to, uh, our accents were different, funny apparently.”

There was bitterness in Pietro’s tone, one that Tony could almost taste. He watched as Pietro frowned and his eyebrows drew low and together like he couldn’t understand why he was still bothered by that fact.

“We’re not from Sokovia,” he told Tony, looking him in the eye. “And I was small, Wanda was smaller. We were a, uh, easy targets. _‘Weird Romanians.’_ The scars…before the scars, cuts, scratches, they were something to talk about. They were cool.”

‘Then,” he continued. “Then after…they were like badges. I had earned them.”

“Like Boy Scout badges?” Stark asked softly, his voice flat and emotionless.

Pietro shrugged.

“I was angry,” Pietro stated, pulling his eyes away from Tony’s and to the table top. “During the protests, angry about what was happening, what had happened. I still am. It was easier to be angry, to feel brave when there was evidence of your struggle. I don’t scar anymore.”

“What?”

“Hydra,” he answered. “When they made me fast, I don’t scar. I heal too fast.”

He grabbed the wire cutters, left discarded on the table and slid it across his bicep before Stark could stop him. He relished in the shock that filtered over the genius’ face and how it turned queasy, and then to outrage. He relished in the burn and the feeling of blood seeping down his arm, and the pull of his skin closing back up.

“What the – what the hell is wrong with you!” Tony snatched the cutters from his hand and tossed them out of reach. Pietro couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up inside of him.

“I don’t scar,” he pointed out, wiping the blood away to show smooth unblemished skin underneath.

“So you what, ran in front of a bunch of bullets because you were really angry about it?”

“Yes.”

Because when he finally got down to it, that was exactly what he did. He might have wanted to end up dead, he might not have, he didn’t know. But he knew for damn sure that he was angry with everything, with Ultron for tricking him, with the Avengers, with the universe for never giving him a fucking break. And he was angry with himself, and his helplessness, he was angry at the desperation inside him and the fear that gripped him, and he had _wanted_ to get hit.

“…why?” Stark asked slowly.

“I didn’t want my story to end with Hydra.”

“What does that even mean?”

“They’re my legacy, the scars,” he explained. “They’re my story. I didn’t want the last thing in it to be Hydra. I wanted control, to bruise and scar.” 

“My, uh, my father,” he continued, forcing words through a stiff jaw and a dry mouth. He wanted someone to understand, wanted to explain the whirlwind in his head and in his heart to someone who could fix it, and if anyone could understand the desire for self-destruction it was Tony Stark. “He said that scars were how you knew you were living. If – if the last scar I got was from Hydra then…it’d always be Hydra. Everything would end with Hydra.”

“How’d you know it’d work?” Tony asked. “How’d you know you’d end up with anything but an early grave?”

“A cop shot me,” he stated, a small smile playing at his lips before he thrusted his elbow into Stark’s face to show him the puckered skin. ‘Fresh wound, an accident, barely hurt but, uh, it didn’t heal right away. It scarred. I thought why stop there.”

He shook his head before continuing, “It was – I wasn’t trying to die, I don’t think. I just – I wanted to be more than a victim of Hydra’s.”

“You are,” Stark told him very seriously, grabbing onto one of his shaking hand. “Pietro, you are a lot more than that.”

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” he told him truthfully, his eyes burning, his heart hammering, hands shaking. “I didn’t want to hurt Wanda, I didn’t. I just…it couldn’t end there! It couldn’t…not with Hydra. They took that from me, and…and…”

He felt like he’d been running and like he’d never been able to get out of that damn bed. He felt like something broken inside him, cracked and crumpled, and fluttered away in the wind, like he was missing something that he’d never get back. He felt guilty, and breathless, and like the walls were closing down on him.

“You come up with a name yet?” Stark asked in a voice that sounded like an echo, faded like it was far away from Pietro’s ear, and spoken much too fast.

“Eh?” he breathed looking to the engineer, back in his chair with his hands flat on the table.

“You come up with a name yet, Speedo?”

“I never said I was–”

“Yeah, I know, Speedball,” Stark waved off before leveling him with an expecting look, like Pietro wasn’t in the middle of an anxiety attack. “But you had a catchphrase before you were even an option for our superhero boy band. I know you have a name so come on, tell Uncle Tony.”

“Quicksilver.”

“That’s…that’s a bit on the nose, you think?”

“You don’t like it?” He asked feeling like he was calming down, like he could breathe easier.

“It’s not very creative.”

“Yeah, you’re right, _Iron Man.”_

“Point taken, don’t shoot guns in glass labs, I get it,” he smirked, before getting up and grabbing a bottle of whiskey off his desk. “I’ll drink to that, welcome to the team, Quckie.”

 

“It was never supposed to be like this,” Pietro slurred, his cheek pressed against the glass desk. “We…Wanda supposed to have a different life, better, safe.”

“Oh, you’re one of those drunks,” Stark muttered, sounding unbelievably sober despite keeping pace with the speedster. “The existentialist.”

“No, ‘m not drunk,” he denied, glaring at Tony who just rolled his eyes in response. “I wanted to be a doctor, to help…help people.”

“What stopping you?”

“It’s all my fault,” he muttered. “All of, everything is my fault.”

“Wanda and I have been separated,” Pietro continued, pushing himself off the table to stare at Tony, he only wavier a little. He pushed his glass over to the engineer. “Before, at the orphanage. A family wants a girl, or a boy, not two damaged twins so we got separated sumtimes. A week, nine days at most, but we, we always end up back together. Too damaged, too broken for _real_ people.”

“That’s tough–”

“Then one day,” he cut off. “Two people, a couple, wanted Wanda and they–” he paused just long enough to chug what Stark had poured for him. “They were nice, nice people. They had a dog an’ everything. Couldn’t afford two kids so they took Wanda, said _sorry._ Aidan, this, uh…this kid at the orphanage, said she wasn’t goin’ to come back, and, and I was scared I’d lose her forever. I punched him and he hit me back. Wanda knocked him out, we left after that.”

“I ruined ev’thing,” he muttered, “I’m the reason she’s here. The reason Hydra…it’s my fault.”

“She’s saving the world, you know,” Stark prodded. “She’s out there saving the world.”

“Big picture,” he replied, splitting the words out like they had a bad taste. “I don’t care about big picture, I care about little picture. I don’t care about the world, I care about her.”

“Maybe that’s your problem.”

“Eh?”

“You even think about having a life that didn’t revolve around her?”

“I need…I need to keep her safe.”

“She’s doing a pretty good job by herself. She’s strong.”

“Steel beams are strong, Stark,” he bit out. “But they still go down when you fire a missile at them. What happen when the next Ultron comes? What happens to her?”

“You’ll tear yourself to pieces thinking that way kid,” Stark replied. “Or you know, build a pretentious genocidal robot.”

“Who protests her when another Tony Stark comes around?” He asked quietly. “Good intentions are dangerous.”

“We have a team, kid,” he replied easily but Pietro knew the words had hurt, they had hurt to say. “We protect each other together, so it doesn’t fall on you.”

‘Hydra was my good intention,” Pietro said quietly. “I begged her to sign up, to volunteer. I thought they were SHIELD, that we could be Cap’n America, we could help people. I wanted to help people.”

“That’s what she’s doing,” Stark replied. “She’s helping people. You said you don’t want to be a victim anymore?”

He nodded slowly.

“Then don’t be,” Stark continued. “That’s what she’s doing. Yeah, Hydra made you weird. Afghanistan did that to me, Red Room did that to Romanoff, Steve was born sick and he let my dad inject him with who-the-hell-knows-what just so he could help in the war. Someone has tried to victimize all of us, Maximoff, and because of those people, we help people. That what Wanda does? You want to be a doctor, be a doctor. Don’t let them win.”

“It’s too late.”

“It’s never–”

“I can only do basic math,” the speedster stated, voice full of forced calm and emptiness when Tony could tell that Pietro was about to burst with emotion. “I read slow, too slow. Can’t spell, I didn’t go to college, didn’t finish high school. I ruined everything.”

“I used to be a kid with promise,” Pietro muttered bitterly. “With potential, I was a smart kid.”

“How’d you know how hard to punch Steve without breaking his jaw?” Stark asked.

“Eh?” He asked.

“How’d you know how fast you needed to run to get those people out of the way of that train?” He continued. “Or how much force was needed to break one of the Ultron robots?”

“I…I know my powers,” he replied, confused. “That–”

“That what? Doesn’t mean anything?” Stark asked. “Physics isn’t just common knowledge, kid. Knowing the exact amount of force, how fast you needed to run on the fly, that’s not common knowledge. Hell, Steve’s a damn tactical genius and he still fucks that up sometimes.”

“I’m fast,” he stated. ‘That’s it, I’m just fast.”

“So what?” Stark asked again, raising an eyebrow at him. “Barton’s just got good aim, doesn’t mean he’s not a damn good agent, superhero. And whatever, life threw a curve ball at you, it didn’t kick you out of the game. You want to be a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“And you think you can’t do that because you didn’t sit in a classroom? So what? Last time I checked you aren’t dead, Piety. You can still fix all that.”

“I can’t be an Avenger if I’m stupid.”

“I’m a social drinker,” Stark replied, pointing to the mostly empty bottle. “I’m also a non-social drinker, but all that’s just a really nice way of saying alcoholic. I built a psychotic robot. Nat’s never sat in a real classroom, everything she knows she was taught by Russian terrorist. Clint learned most of his fundamentals through SHIELD. Steve’s method is not to ask how something works but to click every button until something happens. And he’s been playing seventy-year catch up for the last three. Thor had his lapses.”

“I’m pretty sure your sister’s English is lacking more than what she leads on,” he continued. “Just like I’m sure she’s working to fix that. We’ve all got problems.”

“Bruce, uh,” Stark grinned a bit to himself. “Bruce, for all his rage monsterness, is probably the most balanced of us all and he jumped out of an airplane and spent a couple weeks god knows where. He called us a time bomb before we were even a team. And for the most part that’s true, I think, we’re a dangerous combo of fucked up people who should all be in some pretty heavy duty therapy but we’re a team, a family.”

“And your sister is a part of that,” Stark continued. “And so are you. If you don’t want to be an Avenger, that’s fine. Pepper’s not an Avenger, neither is Jane, or Coulson, or Betty, or Darcy, but they all help. You wanna be a doctor, and for damn sure I’ll help you be a doctor. We all will. Got it?”

“Yes.”


	4. Chapter 4

The inside of his mouth felt like cotton and he desperately needed water. His head was pounding to beat of a marching band he couldn’t hear and he didn’t have to move to know that there was no ounce of painkillers left in his system, but that wasn’t the most pressing matter.

What was really concerning was that after months of sleeping on the thin clumpy mattress in the infirmary, he knew one hundred percent that he was no longer sleeping on that mattress, which meant that…it meant that he didn’t know where he was.

When he finally managed to not only roll over, with the minimal amount of groaning and a very queasy stomach, and had managed to unstick his eyes he found Wanda’s unimpressed face swimming in front of him.

“How long have you been staring at me like that?”

“As long as I’ve been here,” Tony called from the other side of the room, his voice grated against the back of Pietro’s eyes like sandpaper, making his hot and itchy. He felt rather than saw Stark wince. “Sorry.”

“You drool,” she stated simply which translated roughly into ‘ _you’re hungover and an idiot.’_

“You snore.”

He let himself fall back onto the bed, closed his eyes against the dizziness and felt his stomach flip and flop inside of him. He wondered if Wanda would be able to predict the exact moment he would throw up hospital food on her shoes.

“Doctor Cho is mad at you,” she stated, crossing her arms. “You’re not supposed to leave the infirmary.”

“Nat said she was going to kick your ass as soon as you’re healthy enough for her to do so,” Barton said from behind Wanda. Pietro opened his eyes again and craned his neck to see the man glaring at him from Stark’s side. “She already got Tony, didn’t she?”

“I would just like to state for the record, _again_ , that I didn’t help him break out,” Stark said. “I just found him.”

“And then pumped him full of alcohol!” Barton exclaimed, hitting him.

“I am bruised!” Stark exclaimed, his voice too loud and too hard on Pietro’s ears. “And I did not…I just supplied it.”

“it’s s’not Tony fault,” Pietro said and then shushed Barton’s response. “You know me, Wands, rebel. And I, I needed to talk.”

“To Tony?” Wanda asked flatly.

“To you,” he answered. “And you were here, so I…”

“Drank a liquor cabinet?” She asked sarcastically.

“I’m not weak, Wanda,” he snapped.

“I never…”

“Yes, you did,” he cut off. “And you didn’t tell me you were leaving.”

“So you what?” She asked sharply, her eyes flashing red. “You can’t drink when you’re on medication, Pietro, and you can’t just leave the infirmary because you’re mad at me!”

“I am not weak!”

“But you were shot,” she stated. “And ‘ _drinking with your bros’_ isn’t going to change that–”

“When have I ever said _‘bro!”_

“ –You spend all your time thinking you need to save me that you forget to take care of yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “About the drinking, about everything, getting shot on purpose. I’m sorry.”

“Wait, what?” Barton asked but neither Pietro nor Wanda paid him any mind.

“I’m sorry you had to hide things from me,” he continued. “And I should have trusted you to be careful and safe because you’re Wanda…and Avengers trust each other, they keep each other safe. They help people.”

“I’m strong, Pietro, I’m powerful.”

“You’ve always been strong, Wanda,” he told her and he meant it. “I just…I get scared.”

“I do too.”

“I never wanted to leave you.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am too,” she smiled before her brow furrowed. “Wait, did you say Avenger trust each other? Are you – are you joining the Avengers? You are, aren’t you!”

“Part time,” he said, unable to fight back the smile growing over his face when she hugged him. “After I’m cleared.”

“Why part time?” she questioned.

“Med school,” Tony answered.

“Med school?” Barton answered.

“I’m going to be a doctor,” he grinned. “Right, Tony?”

“Damn straight.”

 

“What Speedball, couldn’t make a costume change?” Stark’s voice came over the coms loud and clear as Pietro grabbed a woman before she was crushed under a falling telephone pole.

“Didn’t think about it.”

“You never do.”

“Well,” Pietro replied sarcastically, brushing off dirt and debris off his scrubs. He’d already torn his sleeve on a jagged corner. “I was a little busy.”

It happened on a deserted street because these kinds of things seemed to always seem to happen on deserted street. Really he had enough experience to know that deserted streets were bad news and should be avoided at all cost. Except he’d heard a noise, like that of a wounded animal and he did, after all, take an oath to protect those who couldn’t, puppies included (or at least it should be).

And it was his job on this mission to get everyone to safety, that was why they called him in after all, interrupting his internship with Dr. Cho and pushing back the hours of studying he still needed to do. It wasn’t like he had a midterm next week or anything.

“Pietro,” he heard Wanda yell.

When he looked up he saw the bullets, the spray from afar. Everything slowed for a second, just in the space of a heartbeat, just enough time for Barton to wrap a restraining hand around Wanda’s arm and to pull her into the cover of the alleyway.

He took in emotions that ran across Wanda’s face, the horror, the shock, the desperate realization that her force fields didn’t reach that far, and the acceptance that they might repeat history all over again.

Then he was beside her in a gust of blue and silver, with a flurry of split trash and a blast of wind, puppy in hand and a grin on his face. The wall he had been standing in front of now littered with hot metal.

Somewhere out there he faintly heard a ‘good for you, Speedy.’

“Let’s name her Lucky,” Clint said bumping into him and taking the dog before Pietro could even open his mouth.

He grinned down at Wanda and she grinned right back.

“Bet you–”

“Don’t ruin the moment, _idiot._ ”  


End file.
